25 February 2014

The Presidents Of The United States Of America are one of
those bands who seem to split and reform continually. After the release of
their last album, 2008’s These Are The Good Times People they split and this
time it seemed to be final. And yet here we are.

Kudos To You! Is their sixth proper album and was funded
via the PledgeMusic campaign. Personally I felt their last album seemed tired,
forced and lacklustre so I was hoping t would be an improvement on that but thankfully Kudos To You! harks back to their earlier
stuff and is a joy to hear. It’s Is a short blast of upbeat, feel good,
singalong pop punk.

They always had a way of making songs seem like they’d
been written in 5 minutes and yet were instant classics and the majority of the
songs here are just like that. Maybe it’s due to the fact that over half of the
fourteen songs are reworkings of really old or unreleased songs as much as it is to do with the bands renewed fire.

(l-r Andrew McKeig, Chris Bellew and Jason Finn)

The subject matter of most songs is ridiculous and the
sort of thing a five year old would write songs about. This isn’t necessarily a
bad thing. Flea Vs Mite is about who would win a fight between said parasites,
Electric Spider is about an electric spider, Crappy Ghost is about a ghost that
isn’t very good, Finger Monster is about a little monster of the end of a
finger, Slow Slow Fly is about….

We need Presidents Of The United States Of America in our
lives, they’ll make us smile and remind that it feels good to be happy and sing
stupid songs sometimes.

Best Song: She’s A Nurse

8 out of 10 - Oh,
now you have my attention and maybe my money, time and heart

As Much Truth As One Can Bear is Mina’s debut album under
her current name though she’s released several previous albums both under her
birth name of Keith Caputo and with 90’s hardcore legends Life Of Agony. As you
can probably work out from that this is Keith’s first album since he became a
woman.

Musically this album is more in keeping with the pop rock
of Keith’s previous solo albums rather than anything Life Of Agony recorded. As
you might expect though a lot, if not all, of the songs deal with Mina’s extreme lifestyle
choice and the turmoil that goes with it, this gives the album a pretty dark
overtone, even compared to her earlier work. It’s actually quite difficult to
listen to in places but often all the more rewarding for it.

The first track is Identity, a slow, mournful
song that deals directly with the way she feels about her situation and sets the scene for the majority of what's to follow. One thing
that’s immediately apparent is that Mina’s singing voice hasn’t changed at all
from Keith’s. Perhaps it was a little naïve of me to think otherwise. Listening to this blind
you’d assume it was a man singing not a woman. Maybe that’s what she means by
“I’m not a man, I’m not a woman” in Identity. Probably not.

Both Jealous and Runaway Girl continue the theme and are pleasant
enough if a little forgettable. The Unshaken, however, is possibly the best
song on the album. It has an old feel about it, like a song that you’ve known
for years. The chorus is great, really infectious.

Alone is a bit more aggressive music wise though still very
much a pop rock song and is fairly self explanatory lyric wise.

My Dear Cats is the first real song that’s differently
themed and is a cover of a poem by 60’s beat poet Gregory Corso. It’s still a
miserable song, obviously, about losing, well I’ll let you work that out for yourself. It's somewhat twee but in a charming way.

The rest of the album follows a similar path as the rest
though Give The Devil Back His Shoes references some of Mina’s musical
influences such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and
Queen.

If I’m honest the albums starts to drag by the last few
songs, they’re all of a similar slow, morose pace and the lack of lyrical
variation gets a little tiresome. Individually the songs are all good, particularly
the last one Cracks In The Mirror, but fourteen slow songs about how hard life is
doesn’t half get you down!

For anyone to go through what Mina, and Keith, have been through is an immensely difficult thing and something I can't imagine. But to do it via the notoriously macho NYHC scene is doubly brave.

As Much Truth As One Can Bear then is a strong, worthy
album with some great songs on it but it’s definitely something you need to be
in the mood for. I would imagine it was written as much for Mina as it was for anyone else and, for someone in the unenviable position of being in the wrong body, this album must be greatly inspirational.

23 February 2014

So today seems to be the day
when I review albums on the strength of their cover alone. The next one I
have picked for today is I Break Horses and their second album
'Chiaroscuro'. This follows their first release 'Hearts' and was released
in early 2014. Following a brief check on the internet it is plan to see
that they are getting a little bit of publicity at the moment, but it is
something that would have passed me by if I had not seen the cover which looks
like a bizarre science snowflake. So I go into this blind as seems to be
the case these days and find out if the cover is the best thing about this
album, or if the music is equal (or better) than the cover.

Starting with a slow pulse
and piano to create a moody landscape, "You Burn" opens the album
with a slow build and dropping and removing of keyboard pieces that will have a
lot of people either hypnotised or reaching for the stop button within the
first few moments. There is lots going on here, but it is all so empty at
the same time; it feels like a slowed down version of Imogen Heap and her first
project Frou Frou. Next is "Faith" which bring to mind 90's
rave culture but without the need to make everyone free to feel good. The
band may use keyboards more, but there is a shoegazing soul at the heart of
this band and part of that is in conflict with the sound as well.
"Ascension" is another piece that feels conflicted or at the very
least played with the wrong sounds. If you took the notes and played it
out on violins or piano I can imagine that it would work incredibly well, but
the keyboard sounds used jar the song.

"Denial" is an
improvement with its late 80's Depeche Mode appeal, it does not use the high
pitched drone that is the bands' poison of choice. At least not all the
time, as they still use it liberally on this tune as well; but it is not as
much in forefront as on other moments in the album. "Breceuse" is a
song I really should like, it has that moody, minimal feeling that is one of my
usual calling cards, but this tune is not holding any interest at all. It
actually sounds like a track that was kept of the Fever Ray album back in 2009
and is about 8 years too late to the minimalist pop scene of the early
2000's. Then comes "Medicine Brush" which starts off with the
sound of a computer being turned on after 20 years of poor service and goes on
for seven plus minutes or forever - it does not make much difference at this
point.

"Disclosure" is
next and it is an improvement on "Medicine Brush" but nothing could have
been much worse. With a slightly oriental movement which might either by
design or happy coincidence, it feels a lot better until they bring back that
sodding tone which is the blight of this album. "Weigh True
Words" is a track which starts off poor and but turns it around in the
chorus. It feels a lot more positive and it also has more of an uplifting
feel, this is a shame that it is one of the few shinning lights on this album
as it might be the breakout song for them. Ending the album is
"Heart To Know" which is another exercise in length and stamina,
shoegazing and drone in one electronic lump of cold harrowing despair.

As an album this is just a
poor man's attempt to make a shoegazing depressing landscape for the
electronica generation when it was already made by Portishead many moons ago
with much better results. Musically it is well played and I am sure that
hipsters will eat this up like the diet pills they have to fit into their
hipster clothes that are made for drain pipes and twigs. This is an
epiphany of style over substance and will be the back ground to many nights of
disappointment and forced media gushing's for those sheep like mortals. I
like many forms of music; this is not one of them. If it was not for a
few of these tracks being happy accidents, this would have gotten a new
negative mark and it is proof that even a good cover cannot save everything.

22 February 2014

I love it when a band turns
up out of nowhere to grab your interest without even playing a note. On a
whim whilst trawling through Pitchfork on Spotify I was drawn to the cover you
see above. I have no idea what the band sounds like at this point, I have
no idea who they are, the image is slightly bizarre to say the least and like a
medieval icon - but I wanted to find out what this record was about straight
away. So now I am in the world of the German/Turkish metal duo of
Mantar. Coming from Northern Germany, they have come to destroy and with
a mission to make powerful metal that will have people in awe. They say
there are no gimmicks, no image and just pure rage and like that they are going
to tear a bloody path across the world with a playing stylish they akin to the
bone crushing sound of a berserk's path. They might say they are in this
with no image, but I'm getting some pretty specific images in my head at this
point just from the description of the band. Just like Early Man and
Darkthrone, this band is a power duo and has no bass player with all the noise
coming from the guitar, amps and the drums. Well he we go, in for a penny
as they say....

Starting with
"Spit" you are given no time what so ever before the band launch into
their pursuit of all things metal. They just let the music do the talking
and with an opening track that would not sound out of place on later day
Darkthrone or Motorhead, they bring more noise than I have heard from bands of
great reputation and have an opening on their debut album which just grabs your
attention from the first second. "Cult Witness" is the second
track and does not let you ease into the album, it drags you along and sounds
like a battle hymn that would have been used to bring terror their enemies and
has all the classic sounds of metal but without any sense of it being
regurgitated dribble that you have heard a thousand times before (although it
does have a whiff of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin. It is refreshing
to hear an album start off with so much promise; and it just keeps getting
better with "Astral Kannibal" which doesn't take up the power, but
slows things down a bit so you can catch your breath. But it is still
taking no prisoners and still sound like the soundtrack to the end of the bloodiest
battle that ever faced the man or the Gods.

Fourth track "Into The
Golden Abyss” starts off with a slow building wall of feedback before the
Arabic rhythm comes into play and then that classic metal riffage, which has
those who are so inclined reaching for their swords and running towards the
battle and in hunt of the glories death. It is full of horror, pain and
torture which is truly towering. "Swinging The Eclipse" is the
nearest this album comes to filler, but this track would still be a masterpiece
on any other album. It has a great hook and showcases all of their
strength. Next is an ode to the art of the berserker "The Berserker’s
Path" which is mostly a spoken word piece that is draped over a slow and
brooding riff war that suits the vocal delivery. A brief rest bite is
given again by the band (in a given degree of rest as it is still as heavy as a
really heavy thing). "The Huntsmen" is next and it comes off
like a piece which Mastodon will be looking in their back catalogue to see if
it was half-inched their discography. I feel like I might be repeating
myself, but it is truly towering again, the band do not seem to have any other
way of writing a song other than at full tilt and with an eye on stealing the
heavens from the remains after Ragnarök.

After this we have "The
Stoning" which is more traditional metal than a lot of the work on here,
having that stomp towards the NWOBHM style which has became vogue again, but it
brings in a flavour of the modern with hints towards Early Man, later day
Darkthrone and even a slight bit of glam (which is strange but hypnotic in the
same breath). After this the mood takes a turn for the worst in terms of
style with "White Nights"; when I say a turn for the worst I mean
that the mood darkens, the playing becomes more heavier somehow (if that was
possible on this album) and the band truly deliver their best song of the
album. In this song is conjures a lot of images of haunted forests, evil
spirits and an amazing amount of powerful riffs that make you wonder what was
next. What they do for the final track "March Of The Crows" is
spectacular and up there with the best work of Liverpool doom merchant's
Conan. The band themselves say they do not want to be called sludge, but
this song does have some sludge elements to it (it is also the only song on the
album which does this, so to Mantar - sorry, but for one moment you kinda do
sound like the word you don't like). This might not be my most favourite
song on the album due to "White Nights" but it is damm close and it
ends the album on such a devastating moment that it takes your breath away.

From beginning to end this
album does not have a weak moment, there is not one thing on this album that is
excessive, unnecessary or filler; the cover art is haunting, the delivery is
brilliant and the drive behind the band is truly astonishing. Already
2014 is turning into a good year for the metal genre and already we might have
a contender for album of the year. It is with true amazement that I give this
the biggest praise from the blog and if they tour near you I would recommend
going; breathtaking.

21 February 2014

Has it really been two years
since Warface
(cleverly linked here) was released onto the world? Time flies and
things of that nature. This album has been long hyped by the band but
finally we have the release of II from North East groove metal machine Def Con
One. Formed in 1998 it did take this band a long time to get their
recording career together with various line-up changes and band members being
in other projects. But they seem to be making up for lost time now and we
now have the second album in two years (message to an awful lot of other bands
- it does not take a fucking age to do So with that being said, Def Con One are
primarily a groove metal band, which was pioneered by Pantera, Pissing Razors
and bands of that ilk. You sort of know what you are going to get before
you ever start, so I am not expecting something like Sheik Yerbouti or Blue
Valentine. What I am expecting is massive riffs, a lot of high pitch
noise and harmonics that could slay the weaker willed in a single note.

Starting with "8h
Ball" and this is text book Pantera worship, I would like to stated that I
don't view this as a bad thing but in this one song I heard moments of
"Cowboys From Hell", "Hellbound" and "5 Minutes
Alone". It has been levelled at Def Con One that they do stray too
close to tribute and with a track like this it could be argued that this is the
case in point; but in groove metal it is very enclosing genre, but I could not
give a shit about that as it is still a decent song. "Broke" is
a more trash affair and is like a sledge hammer to the head. It is a much
better track and could have easily opened the album to be honest. It
packs a punch that is much more subtle and the break down section towards the
end is brilliant. Next is "Soul Possessed" which has an
acoustic beginning that gives way to a full on fight mode number. It is
non-stop from beginning to end and mixing old and new school trash and groove
to its best effect. "Scarred For Life" is another juggernaut that
takes no prisoner but it is based on a very simple riff pattern that has been
used to great effect by lots of band; again not saying it is a bad thing, to be
honest Jerm (one of our other bloggers has been running around very excitedly
about this song), just this is new and very familiar at the same time.

"Debt To Society"
is a strange song, going on about forgings one's own path in the world the riff
is decent but I just cannot get into the track. I have a feeling that
being played live this song will taken on a whole new meaning but on this
record it does not do that much to me. "Skinhead Shaped Dent"
however is much better; starting off with a fire storm of twisted harmonics and
blast beats, it works on so many levels and picks this album up at the right
time. Next up it is "Need A Reason" which has a haunting
opening and much more drama than I was expecting. It shows a growth in
the band's writing style and is hands down the best song on the album.

"Die Again" is
another slow number, building slowly upwards and onwards towards that inevitable
breakdown and crushing finale. It is perfectly executed in deliver and
again shows that not all of their tracks are groove orientated. After
this though comes "Damned Disgrace" which brings back the groove and
it is for the best at this point as sometimes you need to just bang your head
like a madman and make devil horns to the world in general. It is a good
to hear this and it goes onto the end of the track "Drag Me To Hell"
which only just misses out of being the best track of the album up against
"Need A Reason", the whole combination of riffs, thumping bass lines
and delivery ends the album on a positive and powerful moment.

Overall this album is an
album that is decent at what it does in places, in a few places it is a little
average and in others is can be quite stunning. The second half of the
album is really good and shows that Def Con One are becoming a really good band
and have ideas that are outside what they normally are associated with and this
is really good for the future. I have a feeling if Jerm was reviewing this
instead of me it would be more of a love letter to the band, for me it does
exactly what it says on the tin and that is not a bad thing. Every now
and then you want some that hits the nail on the head and it is another
improvement on 'Warface' which is what each album should be - a step in the
right direction. The band has been making waves around the UK and will no doubt
be playing far and wide as soon as possible. As I have said before and I
will say again, it is a good time to be into music in Newcastle as there is a
lot of really good bands around at the moment, Def Con One are another band to
add to that list of interesting band that you should check out.

17 February 2014

I will start this with a
notice - Maxïmo Park is one of those Jekyll and Hyde bands for me. When
they are on fire, they are untouchable. Anyone who has seen their live
set in various shows up and down the UK and around the world will testify to
this and they have a knack of writing a catchy tune. On the negative side
when Maxïmo Park play it by the numbers that accent type singing grinds my
gears like a Peter Griffin silly side note on Family Guy; this is coming from
someone from the North East of England. Also, they seemed to have peaked
a little early for my tastes with 'Our Earthly Pleasure' being the last album I
took any real interest in. That said it is always an event when a band
from the North East have a good reputation and release an album. I have
been going over this album since it was released at the beginning of February
and I think I am finally ready to release my opinions....

Starting with the interesting
"Give, Get Take" it is the song which is most reminisce of past
Maxïmo Park hits, but it is restrained and almost held back compared the
anarchic stylistic bombardment of previous albums. But this is not a bad thing;
it is as if the band have become comfortable with what they do and know when
they need to (whilst stealing one of their song titles) apply some pressure to
the song. It is a brilliant song which builds on itself into a great
piece of indie rock. "Brain Cells" is next which has a change
of direction for the band, sounding like one of the darker moments of Bloc
Party mixed in with Joy Division it is a disturbing moment which is also
incredible well balanced. After this is the first single taken from the album
"Leave This Island" which is a glorious tale of a lost day in Scotland,
it is quite possibly one of the strangest choices of singles but it makes so
much sense on this album. It is showcasing the new Maxïmo Park who is
here to take your heart as well as your dancing feet. It is not a fast
dance, but it is a dance never the less.

"Lydia, The Ink Will
Never Dry" is the fourth track of the album, another heartbreaking tale
about a love that has broken down and finished. The band has not changed
too much, but it is an improvement on this album so far cannot be
understated. The quite moments and release of their more subtle side is
making this a better album that I was expecting. "My Bloody Mind" is
up next and is a little more rocky that the rest of the album, it is needed in
some respects otherwise it would be all a little too melodic; but it is not
much of an improvement to the tone for me at least. It is not bad, just
not as good as the first four tracks. "Is It True?" is after
this with an 80's indie feel and a mood swing which could shatter the happiest
mood. Never has misery sounded as distort and lost. Then we come to
"Drinking Martinis" which swaggers onto the album with a tale of past
drinking stories and night long gone, wishing that those days were back and the
fun was still happening around them. It is a moment which is cementing their reputation
on this album for dark tales of woe and regret.
"I Recognise The Light" is the closest that the album gets to their
old ways, but it is a stripped back version of their early work. It is a
good reminder of that they are not just the new kings of Northern misery and
doom (who had thought that would have been written about them). "Midnight
On The Hill" is a darker Big Country which is a very good thing. It
will be one of the moments of their gigs that will go down a storm I am sure.
It feels like an anthem waiting to be discovered. "Her Name Was
Audre" which is a punky little display of simplicity that is a fantastic
stop gap before the last song which is "Where We're Going". The final
track is about not knowing where you are heading and being fine with letting
the other person knowing the direction that they are heading towards, it is
quite yet fitting ending to this album.
I am really surprised by this record on many levels. It is so dark and
brooding that it is strange to this came from the same band who released
"Our Velocity", it just does not seem like the same guys and I think
that this will one day be held one of their best releases, if not their best
work. The change in the band is brilliant and having no producers apart
from themselves working on the album. I was going in with low
expectations and I am glad to have been proven wrong. A moment of genius
from the new dark indie pop overlord from up north!
9.5 out of ten - Almost perfect, almost....
Top track - Drinking MartinisYou
can purchase the album from Amazon hereYou can visit the Maximo Park website hereYou can listen
to the album on Spotify hereAlternatively, for Deezer user's
here is a link for you

Life of Agony can never be accused of taking the easy route, that is something that can be said for them. It could be the fact that the...

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Album scoring system

0 - This is proof there is no deity1 - You're really are touching the bottom of the barrel with this one2 - If only there was some quality control3 - It could have been a bit better4 - Well it's alright, but still......5 -Not for everyone but played well6 - Now I see where you were going, but it's not quite there7 - This is good and well worth a check8 - Oh, now you have my attention and maybe my money, time and heart9 - Almost perfect....Almost10 - This is proof there is a deity(For albums that are too crazy to be marked)Crazy Cat symbol - This album cannot be marked, so here is a box of kittens

Singles/EP Marking System

0 - Only to be listened to by people bless with the gift of being deaf1 - Not so much on the bad that it is bottom of the barrel, but it can see the stuff down there2 - Not bad, not good - so average it is Zen3 - Decent, getting there4 - This is really good, well worth checking out5 - I wish I had extra ears to love this more(For Singles/EPs that are too crazy to mark)Crazy Cat symbol - This release cannot be marked, so here is a box of kittens